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The Virtue of Nationalism?
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I consider myself both, and as far as America goes I think there isn’t as big a difference between the two as you might think. What makes America different from the rest of the world is that it’s a nation with a people, and not a people with a nation. Most European countries are associated with a group of people, ie Germans in Germany, Swedes in Sweden, Turks in Turkey, etc. America is based on a creed, not an ethnic group. And the fact we haven’t always lived up to that creed doesn’t mean it isn’t good. In the sense described here:
>“exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.”
I would consider that a reasonable summation of my views. Is that not what was meant by “America First”?
Edit: and this is hardly a minority position either. Most Americans are some type of nationalist, per WaPo.
Edit2: There’s a good book that’s been written on the subject, I haven’t had the opportunity to get all the way through it yet, but it’s very good from what I’ve seen so far: https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Nationalism-Yoram-Hazony/dp/1541645375
> This strikes me as pretty soft stuff, and again stresses the need for consensus rather than conflict. FWIW, I'm far more personally supportive of gun control in general than the median poster here, but I'm also not American, and I recognise that that might mean that there are certain facts or symbolism that I just don't get.
How is gun control in your country? That is, was there ever widespread citizen gun ownership? Were there successful buyback programs? Is there a strong sense of cultural unity and togetherness that lends itself towards things like successful buybacks and trust in government?
>One of our chief goals in the US should be reducing the tribalism and division that make these tragedies even remotely possible.
Does the letter go into how we would achieve the goal of reducing tribalism? Does he mean something like Hazony's Virtues of Nationalism or Fukuyama's creedal identity and patriotism, or everyone becoming metaphorical grey blobs that never offend one another? I would hope the former; a culture needs something to organize around to help avoid the negative expressions of tribalism.
Looking at the list of proposals on his site, that one isn't explicitly mentioned, though it's probably folded into/spread across several of the others. Looking at the full list, it's an... interesting portrait of a candidate, with many ideas that seem sensible and others that represent poison pills for the activist wings of both major US parties.
The human-centered capitalism is pretty interesting on its own; I appreciate many of the facets therein.
Episode Description
>speak with Yoram about what distinguishes British/American conservatism and how exportable it actually is, the liberal idea that politics can address itself to the public sphere alone, the possibility of democracy, the disenchantment of life downstream from technology, and much more. Yoram Hazony is an Israeli philosopher, a Bible scholar, and a political theorist. He is president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and serves as the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation. He is also the author of the Virtue of Nationalism and the new book Conservatism: A Rediscovery.
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>Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aksubversive/message
The synopsis is so messy.
The books are The Virtue of Nationalism and Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Like the podcast episode, their synopsis is all over the place.
Instead of having us listen to a hour long podcast, why not explain (in the post) what you took from it?
I thought this was an interesting work on the topic, though I have more complex view of the question than the author.
Sovereignties, Social Orders, and Internationalism: Reviving the Libertarian Interstate Federalist Tradition
Guest Editor, Brandon Christensen
Classical liberal and libertarian scholars have long been concerned with the interaction of states. States are central to issues of war & peace, poverty & wealth, and art & brutality. For centuries, the primary concern for classical liberals was Balkanization rather than empire. Thus Adam Smith advocated for a federation between the British Isles and British North America. Thus the American federalists advocated for a federal union instead of 13 sovereign states. Thus Hayek and Mises called for the abrogation of national sovereignties under an international legal regime.
The end of World War II and the advent of the Cold War changed the concern about Balkanization. Empire became the paramount worry for libertarians and classical liberals. As a result, their focus shifted from an interaction between states to the actions of the United States. Other variants of IR liberalism have flourished since the end of World War II, but classical liberal and libertarian thought on IR has been hampered by a lingering concern over imperialism. Thus the European Union governs by fiat and democratic excess. Thus regional cooperation is not driven by concerns for individual liberty. Thus internationalist organizations are unconcerned with authoritarian overreach.
This is a call to revive the libertarian interstate federalist tradition, but it’s also an invitation to push boundaries on the well-established topics of sovereignties, social orders, and internationalism. Papers to be considered must be set in the context of international relations between polities (but not necessarily states) and they must provide rebuttals, further thoughts, or criticisms about the following notions:
● Do the concepts of polycentric democracy (Andersson) and polycentric sovereignty (Salter & Young) answer the age-old problem of predation better than republican security theory (Deudney)?
● Why did pre-1945 classical liberals believe that Balkanization was the main threat to peace, wealth, and liberty?
● Is ethnogenesis (Geloso & Rouanet) an overlooked answer to the problem of state sovereignty?
● Should libertarians and classical liberals continue to work around state sovereignty (MacDonald; Tucker & de Bellis), or revive efforts to confront it directly (Christensen)?
● How imperial is the current liberal world order (Ikenberry)? How liberal are the national
(Hazony) or civilizational (Maçães, Pabst) challenges to the status quo?
● Does the Westphalian status quo deserve its much-maligned reputation in libertarian and
classical liberal circles (Van de Haar)?
● What, if anything, can the libertarian interstate federalist tradition do for state capacity libertarianism (Cowen)?
Please send your proposal (an abstract or draft of the paper) to Brandon Christensen: (subject line: C + T symposium) no later than June 1, 2021. Notification of acceptance will be sent by June 25, 2021.
Timeline: Accepted papers (max 8,500 words) will be subject to peer-review. The issue will be published in late 2021 or early to mid-2022.
Guest Editor, Brandon Christensen
Classical liberal and libertarian scholars have long been concerned with the interaction of states. States are central to issues of war & peace, poverty & wealth, and art & brutality. For centuries, the primary concern for classical liberals was Balkanization rather than empire. Thus Adam Smith advocated for a federation between the British Isles and British North America. Thus the American federalists advocated for a federal union instead of 13 sovereign states. Thus Hayek and Mises called for the abrogation of national sovereignties under an international legal regime.
The end of World War II and the advent of the Cold War changed the concern about Balkanization. Empire became the paramount worry for libertarians and classical liberals. As a result, their focus shifted from an interaction between states to the actions of the United States. Other variants of IR liberalism have flourished since the end of World War II, but classical liberal and libertarian thought on IR has been hampered by a lingering concern over imperialism. Thus the European Union governs by fiat and democratic excess. Thus regional cooperation is not driven by concerns for individual liberty. Thus internationalist organizations are unconcerned with authoritarian overreach.
This is a call to revive the libertarian interstate federalist tradition, but it’s also an invitation to push boundaries on the well-established topics of sovereignties, social orders, and internationalism. Papers to be considered must be set in the context of international relations between polities (but not necessarily states) and they must provide rebuttals, further thoughts, or criticisms about the following notions:
● Do the concepts of polycentric democracy (Andersson) and polycentric sovereignty (Salter & Young) answer the age-old problem of predation better than republican security theory (Deudney)?
● Why did pre-1945 classical liberals believe that Balkanization was the main threat to peace, wealth, and liberty?
● Is ethnogenesis (Geloso & Rouanet) an overlooked answer to the problem of state sovereignty?
● Should libertarians and classical liberals continue to work around state sovereignty (MacDonald; Tucker & de Bellis), or revive efforts to confront it directly (Christensen)?
● How imperial is the current liberal world order (Ikenberry)? How liberal are the national
(Hazony) or civilizational (Maçães, Pabst) challenges to the status quo?
● Does the Westphalian status quo deserve its much-maligned reputation in libertarian and
classical liberal circles (Van de Haar)?
● What, if anything, can the libertarian interstate federalist tradition do for state capacity libertarianism (Cowen)?
Please send your proposal (an abstract or draft of the paper) to Brandon Christensen: (subject line: C + T symposium) no later than June 1, 2021. Notification of acceptance will be sent by June 25, 2021.
Timeline: Accepted papers (max 8,500 words) will be subject to peer-review. The issue will be published in late 2021 or early to mid-2022.
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